2024-01-22 16:58:56
“Love is…” wrote Kim Casali on his famous cartoons in the 1960s. After a few years and a psychological study that has traveled around the world, that famous beginning of the sentence could be completed with “… ask the right questions”. In 1997 the psychologist Arthur Aron – we read in the New York Times – he demonstrated that it is possible to make two strangers fall in love in an hour with a test of 36 questions divided into 3 groups, designed to gradually lower the other person’s defenses.
Love analyzed in the laboratory
Twenty years ago Aron and his colleagues published an essay in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin titled “Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness.” They wanted to find out if it was possible to create an artificial, ‘laboratory’ context in which two strangers could bond with each other and build a deep friendship, or even a romantic relationship, in less than an hour. So they organized a series of experiments with some pairs of people who didn’t know each other. The two volunteers entered an empty room, sat down opposite each other and began answering a list of questions, 36 specifically. At the end the volunteers had to look into each other’s eyes for 4 minutes. The duration of the meeting should not exceed 45 minutes.
Here are the 36 questions to fall in love
First group:
1. If you could choose any person in the world, who would you invite to dinner?
2. Would you like to be famous? As?
3. Before making a phone call, do you rehearse what you will say?
4. Define what is «The perfect day» for you?
5. When is the last time you sang alone? What about someone else?
6. If you could live to be 90 and have either the body or mind of a 30-year-old for your last 60 years, which one would you choose?
7. Do you ever think about the way you will die?
8. Three things you and your partner have in common.
9. What is the thing in your life that you are most grateful for?
10. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?
11. Tell your life story to your partner in 4 minutes in as much detail as possible.
12. If you could wake up tomorrow with a particular quality, what would you choose?
Second group:
13. If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life or the future or anything else, which would you choose?
14. Is there anything you have long dreamed of doing? Why didn’t you do it?
15. What is the greatest achievement of your life?
16. What matters most to you in a friendship?
17. What is your fondest memory?
18. And the most terrible?
19. If you knew that you would die within a year, what would you change in your life?
20. What does friendship mean to you?
21. What role does love play in your life?
22. Share at least five positive qualities about each other with your partner.
23. How loving was your family? Do you think your childhood was happier than others on average?
24. What is your relationship with your mother?
Third group:
25. You and your partner make three true “we” statements. For example: “We are both in this room and we hear…”.
26. Complete this sentence: “I wish I had someone to share with…”
27. If you became friends with your partner, what secret would he or she know about you?
28. Tell your partner what you like about him.
29. Share an embarrassing moment in your life with your partner.
30. When was the last time you cried in front of someone? And alone?
31. Point out to your partner something you particularly like about him.
32. What is too serious to joke about?
33. If you were to die this evening, what is the thing you most regret not telling someone?
34. Your house burns down, you only have time to save one item, what would you choose and why?
35. Of all the people in your family, whose death would affect you the most?
36. Share a personal problem with your partner and ask him or her for help solving it.
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